Restaurant smoking bans help snuff out European youth smoking

September 12, 2012

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Teenagers and young adults are less
likely to smoke when faced with restaurant smoking bans and minimum
tobacco-purchase ages in Europe, according to new research by a Purdue
University sociologist.

"Policies that restrict smoking directly affect young
people's behavior, and that may be a key element to curb smoking rates because
most adult smokers report starting when they were teenagers," says Mike
Vuolo, an assistant professor of sociology who studies youth behavior. "In
countries with restaurant smoking bans, young people were 35 percent less
likely to smoke regularly."

Most studies look at individual factors, such as income
and education levels and smoking rates, but this study also examined policies
and other social influences, such as antismoking messages in mass media and
cigarette taxes.

The article is published in a recent issue of Social
Forces. The results are based on self-reported cigarette use of people ages
15-24 in the original 15 European Union countries, and the data is from
Eurostat, the European Commission's statistics branch, and the World Health
Organization. The survey information was collected in the spring of 2002, and
there were 7,532 respondents with an average of 450 respondents per country.

In 2002, seven of the 15 European countries had restaurant
smoking bans.

"Enforcing a law certainly plays a role in
influencing behavior," Vuolo said. "While the bans and policies
create a physical obstacle to smoking, they also add a stigma that likely contributes
to deterring young people from the habit."

The study also found that local taxes and anti-tobacco
campaigns were less effective in reducing smoking than bans and age limits.

"Strategies that rely on a personal cost or a cry to
change behavior, such as taxes or anti-smoking posters, weren't as likely to
curb cigarette use as policies do," he said. "However, a long-term
study that looks at the impact of each effort is needed to better understand
how sociological factors contribute to individual behavior."

Because the 18-year-old minimum purchase age in the United
States is universal, this finding is not as applicable as in Europe, when, at
the time of the 2002 data collection, the restricted ages varied by regions. At
that time, six countries had no minimum purchase age; three countries required
consumers to be 18; and six countries required age 16.

In countries with no minimum purchase age, the probability
of a young person smoking regularly was about 46 percent, compared to 30
percent in countries with age restrictions.

"Considering that most adult smokers start smoking
when they are teenagers, these laws and bans can be a first step to
discouraging young people from smoking," he said.

The research was completed during Vuolo's doctoral work at
the University of Minnesota.

Note to
Journalists: Journalists interested in a copy of the journal article
can contact Amy Patterson Neubert, Purdue News Service, at 765-494-9723,
apatterson@purdue.edu

ABSTRACT

Placing Deviance in a
Legal and Logical Context: A Multilevel Analysis of Cigarette Use in the
European Union

Mike
Vuolo

Though it has produced
a high-quality body of research, the study of substance use has remained highly
individualized in its focus. This paper adds further sociological understanding
to that research. Using hierarchical methods, the following explores how
institutional and criminological theories can be incorporated into substance
use research by examining cigarette smoking at three levels of variation. Two
main findings emerge. First, national legal context plays a role in
understanding individual-level probabilities of substance use, even after
controlling for individual and local characteristics. For example, lower
probabilities of smoking occur where there are smoking bans and minimum
purchase ages. Second, the effects of local context, such as unemployment and
the percentage of young people, exhibit significant effects of individual-level
cigarette use.